North Korea already tested intercontinental ballistic missiles, but researchers declared them too small for delivering a heavy nuclear device halfway around the world to the continental US.

Tal Inbar, the head of the space research center at the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies called the reentry vehicle (the tip that returns to earth) on the Hwasong-15 “Amazingly HUGE.”

But Mike Elleman, a leading missile expert, claims despite the missile’s size it still probably couldn’t send a heavy nuclear warhead as far as the US’s east coast.

In a detailed assessment for 38 North, a program of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins SAIS, Elleman states when North Korea demonstrated the 8,000-mile range of the Hwasong-15 and its other long-range missiles, they “likely carried very small payloads.”

#NorthKorea‘s Hwasong-15 ICBM flight test appears to be another step forward in its ballistic missile program. @EllemanIISS compares performance to and changes since the two Hwasong-14 tests from July in latest assessment: https://t.co/iJEAW6NddV